Saturday, August 1, 2009

Atlanta Web Designers Group July meetup

Thursday evening I attended my first meetup of the Atlanta Web Designers held at the Portfolio Center on Bennett Street. The meetup was well attended with approximately 50 members. The main speaker was Brandon Eley who presented some great tips on incorporating marketing into the design process for your website. I picked up several valuable techniques that I will definitely use. For example the number one question to ask when building a Website is "What do you want your visitors to do?" Make sure it's clear on each landing page exactly what action you most want a visitor to take. Make it stand out. Brandon mentioned that often sites are designed around the company organization chart. But it is far more effective to design with verbs and adverbs that guide visitors to take whatever action you want them to take...like "Buy Something" or "Download a demo".

Volunteers were requested to submit a website for critque by Brandon and the group. I volunteered a website I've been supporting and in return received some valuable feedback (and a copy of Brandon's new book). I'm looking forward to the August meetup of AWDG.